Lafelle had been impatiently awaiting this moment. He therefore plunged eagerly into his subject. “Mr. Ames,” said he, “I know you to have great influence at the Capital. In the interests of humanity, I ask you to use that influence to prevent the passage of the immigration bill which provides for a literacy test.”
Ames smiled inwardly. There was no need of this request; for, in the interests, not of humanity, but of his own steamship companies, he intended that there should be no restriction imposed upon immigration. But the Church was again playing into his hands, coming to him for favors. And the Church always paid heavily for his support. “Well! well!” he exclaimed with an assumption of interest, “so you ask me to impugn my own patriotism!”
Lafelle looked perplexed. “I don’t quite understand,” he said.
“Why,” Ames explained, “how long do you figure it will take, with unrestricted immigration, for the Catholics to so outnumber the Protestants in the United States as to establish their religion by law and force it into the schools?”
Lafelle flushed. “But your Constitution provides toleration for all religions!”
“And the Constitution is quite flexible, and wholly subject to amendment, is it not?”
Lafelle flared out in unrestrained anger. “What a bugaboo you Protestants make of Roman Catholicism!” he cried. “Great heavens! Why, one would think that we Catholics were all anarchists! Are we such a menace, such a curse to your Republican institutions? Do you ever stop to realize what the Church has done for civilization, and for your own country? And where, think you, would art and learning be now but for her? Have you any adequate idea what the Church is doing to-day for the poor, for the oppressed? Good God! You Protestants, a thousand times more intolerant than we, treat us as if we were Hindoo pariahs! This whole country is suffering from the delirium of Roman Catholic-phobia! Will you drive us to armed defense?”
“There, my friend, calm yourself,” soothed Ames, laying a hand on the irate churchman’s arm. “And please do not class me with the Protestants, for I am not one of them. You Catholic fellows have made admirable gains in the past few years, and your steady encroachments have netted you about ninety per cent of all the political offices in and about Washington, so you have no complaint, even if the Church isn’t in politics. H’m! So you want my help, eh?”
He stopped and drummed on the table. Meantime, his brain was working rapidly. “By the way, Lafelle,” he said, abruptly resuming the conversation, “you know all about church laws and customs, running way back to mediaeval times. Can’t you dig up some old provision whereby I can block a fellow who claims to own a gold mine down in Colombia? If you can, I’ll see that the President vetoes every obnoxious immigration bill that’s introduced this term.”